The children ran off laughing before Sarisa could find a reason to stop them.
Aliyah darted into the flower maze with Kaelith in tow, both of them already covered in crumbs and petal dust.
She heard Kaelith yell something about "spirit-fighting form number six" before Aliyah shrieked with delight and took off at full speed.
And Lara of course tossed her jacket to the ground and followed them in three easy strides.
"Hey! No dark fire near the sacred lilies!"
"They started it!"
"You set the bush on fire, Aliyah!"
"It was looking at me funny!"
Sarisa remained seated.
She'd lowered herself onto a carved stone bench near the edge of the garden, under the shade of a flowering tree whose petals smelled faintly of silverroot and memory.
The tray sat beside her, half-empty. The children's voices rang across the courtyard, clear and unfiltered.
So did Lara's laugh.
Sarisa didn't know what to do with that sound anymore.
It hit her in strange places—soft and sharp all at once.
The same way she'd felt when she overheard Aliyah's question.
Do you love Mom like Aunt Malvoria loves Elysia?
And Lara's answer.
No.
She had said it with the kind of conviction Sarisa had trained herself to use during council debates. Direct. Definitive. Final.
No.
It shouldn't hurt.
They weren't lovers. Never had been. Never promised to be. There had never been some grand confession, no moment when one reached for the other in the dark.
They were co-parents. Partners, yes but in duty. In function. In survival.
That was what they had agreed on.
And Sarisa… Sarisa had been the one to draw that boundary first.
Five years ago, she had buried her softness beneath responsibility. She had stepped into her mother's shoes long before she was asked. She had reshaped herself to be the kind of woman the realm needed.
Steady.
Impenetrable.
Unshakable.
But watching Lara now her hair catching the light, her eyes alive with laughter as she lifted Kaelith into the air like a giggling comet Sarisa found herself asking a question she hated.
Is co-parenting enough?
Aliyah crashed into a hedge, erupted into laughter, and tumbled onto the grass. Lara dropped beside her dramatically, pretending to faint from exhaustion. Kaelith declared herself victorious and stood on a boulder, arms raised like a war goddess.
Sarisa rested her chin in her hand and watched them.
So wild. So bright. So free.
She had loved that freedom once. Had craved it like sun on skin.
Now, she sat wrapped in layered silk and expectation, a queen-to-be watching a life she had no time to live.
A small part of her wanted to get up and join them.
To run. To roll in the grass. To laugh until her stomach ached and forget the way people looked at her in council chambers.
Forget the name of her soon-to-be arranged spouse. Forget the weight of every gold-threaded robe she was expected to wear.
But she didn't move.
Lara glanced her way once. Just for a moment.
She waved.
Sarisa nodded.
The space between them yawned wider.
Maybe it was better this way.
She had spent so long trying to shape herself into someone Lara could rely on. A co-parent.
A partner in discipline. A figure of reason to Lara's delightful chaos. Maybe this was how it had to be.
She couldn't afford to be anything more than what she already was.
Aliyah was already too much for the Celestial court. Half-demon. Black fire. Sharp words. Untamed energy.
She was a scandal in the shape of a miracle.
Sarisa couldn't be a scandal, too.
So she sat, composed, still. Her tattoos pulsed softly on her skin, quiet reminders of the power she never used unless absolutely necessary.
Lara threw Kaelith over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and spun until they were both dizzy. Aliyah yelled "Again! Again!" and tackled them both with a gleeful shriek.
Sarisa smiled before she could stop herself.
But it didn't reach her eyes.
Because no matter how close they all were—how many dinners, bedtime stories, tears wiped, and wounds mended—they were not a family. Not truly.
Not in the way Malvoria and Elysia were. Not in the way Sarisa had once dreamed of being.
Lara had made that clear.
No, she'd said.
Not maybe, not not yet, not I don't know.
Just… no.
Sarisa leaned back, letting her eyes close for a moment. The sun warmed her skin. The wind teased a few strands of her hair loose from their perfect arrangement.
Somewhere nearby, Aliyah roared like a dragon, and Kaelith countered with "By the authority of my sparkly stick, I sentence you to thirty years in time-out!"
Lara's voice echoed: "You'll never catch me, Celestial scum!"
Sarisa laughed quietly. That was new. Soft. Real.
She wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like if things had been different.
If she hadn't buried her affection under layers of policy.
If she had told Lara how much she admired her fire.
If she had said, just once, "You don't have to leave. You can stay."
But she hadn't.
And Lara hadn't.
So here they were.
Just two women.
Raising a child together.
Nothing more.